WASHINGTON – Former GOP Lt. Gov. Evelyn Sanguinetti is expected to announce a run on Monday for the sixth congressional district seat now held by freshman Rep. Sean Casten, D-Ill.
Sanguinettii’s team sent out a news release on Friday stating she will make a “major announcement in Wheaton detailing her plans to continue serving the public.”
After an event at her hometown Wheaton restaurant, she will head to Cary to meet with business owners with former Rep. Don Manzullo, R-Ill., and wind up the day meeting with campaign supporters in Barrington.
All the stops are in the 6th District. The Chicago Sun-Times reported last month that Sanguinetti had been talking to the National Republican Congressional Committee, the GOP House political arm, about a run. She has also been telling people she is looking at a congressional bid.
Sanguinetti was tapped by former Gov. Bruce Rauner to be his running mate. The Rauner/Sanguinetti ticket was stomped by Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker last November.
Sanguinetti’s challenge will be to deal with her association with the wildly unpopular Rauner.
So far, Sanguinetti is the only one poised to announce in the GOP primary.
Casten and Rep. Lauren Underwood, D-Ill., from the adjacent 14th District, are freshmen who flipped Chicago-area Republican districts last November, contributing to the Democrats winning control of the House.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Dem House political shop, put Underwood and Casten on their list of the top 44 Democrats to defend in their “Frontline Program.”
The National Republican Congressional Committee have put Underwood and Casten on their list of 55 prime targets in 2020.
